


Beastie Boy

by slashmania



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Arthur can't stop rapping, Beastie Boys, Crack, Imagine that there are lyrics, M/M, Six Degrees of Saito should be a game, Somnacin accident, this also makes the job hard, this makes life hard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-15
Updated: 2016-01-15
Packaged: 2018-05-14 02:35:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5726578
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slashmania/pseuds/slashmania
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After testing a compound for Yusuf, Arthur can't stop rapping like a Beastie Boy. Problems occur.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Beastie Boy

**Author's Note:**

> A.N: Originally, this story had the lyrics Arthur was rapping. It was funny but I realized that it looked way too much like copyright infringement. So I took out the lyrics and salvaged it. 
> 
> Disclaimer: I don't own Inception or any Beastie Boys music.

“You need to understand,” Yusuf said carefully, like a doctor would before he offers an unfavorable diagnosis. “This will pass within a few days. At most. I think.”

  
“I would have been happier if you hadn’t used smaller sentences to tell me that something is wrong with Arthur.” Eames frowned. “For instance ‘you need to understand this will pass within a few days at most.’ Like that.”

  
“You left out the ‘I think’.”

  
“So sue me. I like my chemist’s diagnosis to sound less like a guess. You tested another compound on Arthur and now he’s suffering from side effects!”

  
Yusuf could have passed for a doctor at that moment- he was wearing a white coat, had his glasses on, and was carrying a clipboard. Its papers were covered in a near indecipherable handwriting that was almost as good as a doctor’s. But Eames could pick out a few words, strings of them, but they didn’t make much sense. Without thinking, Eames pointed at one of the phrases and said aloud, “What does this one say?”

  
He squinted at it and finally understood, not hearing the sound of a door opening and closing. He should have shut up, but he didn’t.  
“Now what’s the time?” Eames said to himself, giving Yusuf a strange look. Yusuf didn’t look very well. He had paled and seemed to be counting to himself, as if he were waiting for an explosion to occur.

  
One did, but it wasn’t the type Eames was expecting.

  
After the words had left his mouth, Eames watched as Arthur nearly slid into the warehouse proper.

  
And, then Arthur began to rap in earnest. Yes. Rap. He was working his way through the introduction to “Time to Get Ill”.

  
Arthur was nodding to a beat only he could hear. Before he could say more, Yusuf grabbed for him and missed.

  
The point man slipped away from him, glaring vengefully. “If you try and sedate me again, Yusuf, I’ll rip something vital off of you. I swear it!”

  
Eames could have asked what the problem was. He could have, just for the sake of specificity. But he had a decent idea of what had happened.  
Arthur had tested a compound for Yusuf only to wake up rapping after hearing certain trigger words or phrases.

* * *

 

Despite the long work day, despite the looming job, Eames took Arthur home early.

  
For them, home was Arthur’s apartment. But with the way Arthur was behaving and his obvious embarrassment when he would start to rap unintentionally, Eames was going to offer to give the point man his privacy and find a another place to sleep.

  
When he suggested it, Arthur clung to him.

  
“No. I’m tired and annoyed and embarrassed that I can’t stop rapping. But I don’t want to be alone, even if it means getting embarrassed in front of you.”

  
“Okay,” Eames said. “But if you start breaking out into “Girls”, I’ll get a little offended.”

  
Arthur punched him for that.

* * *

It didn’t make their work any harder. It’s just that Arthur had to suddenly start rapping after hearing something, or reading something, or sitting still and thinking of something. Yusuf had promised that it wouldn’t last for very long. That the compound had been designed to make a mark more willing to offer information, especially if there was a close association. For instance, that by starting a sentence, the mark would supply the rest in reply.

  
But it didn’t really explain why Arthur was stuck on Beastie Boys lyrics. He didn’t really look like a rapping kind of guy. He had never mentioned liking the Beastie Boys, either. But, regardless, Arthur would start rapping, looking a bit embarrassed at first. Then a bit annoyed. Then finally, Arthur would start rapping with an air of resignation.

  
But even if he was resigned, he didn’t like it when he was deliberately provoked into rapping against his will.

* * *

  
Ariadne stood by Arthur’s desk- she had noticed that the point man was wearing earplugs. And even though they hadn’t been helping much, she admired the man’s effort to stop spontaneous rapping.

  
She looked at a note; it was a list of very specific phrases that she should avoid. It was going to be difficult, but she wanted to make sure Arthur wasn’t excluded from her coffee run. But if she truly didn’t want to incur the point man’s rhymes and wrath, she would have asked Eames how the man took his coffee.

  
“Arthur, I’m going to get some coffee,” the young architect began, unable to stop her smile when Arthur glared at her. It was clear that he could still hear her, even if it was faint.

  
Before Arthur could actually say how he liked his coffee, he had to break into a the pertinent part of “Intergalactic” because it referenced how the Beastie Boys liked their coffee.

  
“I want a large coffee with two shots of espresso. No sugar. I also want to kill you, I hope you understand that.” And then Arthur spit a few more rhymes, glaring at her still.

* * *

Experiencing a rapping point man was something…special. It was Day Three of what Yusuf was calling 'Project Beastie Boy', carefully detailing Arthur’s reactions, mood, and the frequency of his rapping. The chemist tried to reassure Arthur that he was actually showing signs of improvement!

  
Eames had pulled him aside to question him.

  
“Are you lying to Arthur? Are you lying to Arthur to make him feel better?”

  
“No. I really do think that he’s doing better,” Yusuf said with certainty, giving Eames direct and unflinching eye-contact. “I have asked Arthur to keep a journal and to detail the episodes and how he is feeling. With any luck he will show fewer and fewer symptoms, indicating that the compound has finally been flushed from his system.”

  
Eames looked over his shoulder at Arthur, who was saying hello to Saito. It was strange, but Eames had been certain that their latest job didn’t have any connections to Saito- but it was silly for Eames to think that, really. Saito was rich, powerful, and influential meaning that he could have connections to their latest bit of corporate espionage. The team actually had a game centered around that idea- they only played it when they were drunk and Saito wasn’t visiting (one, because it was kind of a rude game to play at his expense and two, Saito was sure to know all the answers). The game was called _Six Degrees of Saito_ and it regularly proved that Saito may as well be best buds with Kevin Bacon, even though so far in the game they haven’t been able to find a short enough connection between the two men.

  
As if it was timed, as if someone had pressed a button and triggered it, Arthur immediately began to rap at a slightly surprised Saito. Eames cringed for them both. Instead of politely asking Saito what he wanted (like he most likely intended), Arthur rapped from “So What’ Cha Want”, eyes wide with shock. If he didn’t sound so…so _into_ his rapping, so much like a Beastie Boy, Arthur would have sounded mortified instead.

  
“Are you alright, Arthur?” Saito asked politely before turning in Eames’s and Yusuf’s direction.

  
Saito simply raised an eyebrow at this strange, strange behavior. Then he turned to look at Arthur again, concerned. Unfortunately, Arthur was rapping in answer to Saito’s question.

  
Cobb, who had just walked into the warehouse, caught the sight of his point man and his former employer. Then he heard Arthur’s rapping and promptly turned on his heel to walk out and away from the problem.

  
A few moments later Ariadne walked in with a tray of to-go coffee cups with a sack of pastries balanced on top.

  
“Cobb just left pretty fast,” she was saying as she placed the tray on top of a table and looked at their newest guest.

  
“Hey!” Ariadne said, “Nice to see you, Saito!”

  
Saito smiled at her (very briefly) before returning his attention to Arthur.

  
“I am very sorry about your predicament but I do not believe that your need to, as they say, ‘bust a rhyme’ has anything to do with my money.” Saito considered it for a moment before adding, “And even though I have got it, I choose not to flaunt it right now.”

  
Ariadne picked up a cup of coffee and gave it to the still glaring Arthur.

  
“You’ve done it again? It’s a shame I missed it- I was thinking that we should film you and post the videos on YouTube. Have you rapped before or has Yusuf unleashed some hidden desire of yours?”

  
“No,” Arthur began before he was rapping again.

  
“But you like the Beastie Boys?” Ariadne asked when he was finished, all persistence and patience as she leaned against the table where she had left the drinks and took a sip of her own coffee. “I know that you feel a little embarrassed but you aren’t that bad, Arthur.”

  
This spurred on another rapping spree that Ariadne actually joined in on at the very end. Arthur was stunned, but then huffed to himself and walked back to his desk with his coffee.

  
Eames found a way to politely slip out of the ensuing ‘I didn’t know you liked the Beastie Boys, Ariadne’ conversation, in favor of thinking over a few things. As they were still expected to work on their latest job, regardless of Arthur’s impulsive rapping, Eames had to catch up on practice for his forgery.

  
But it didn’t mean his mind was free from thoughts of his poor beleaguered darling.

* * *

It was true. Arthur was showing signs of recovery from his previously uncontrollable rapping. The progress was small, but it was encouraging. Cobb didn’t try to disappear when he saw Arthur busy at work. Ariadne didn’t bother him about the Beastie Boys, but smiled and nodded her head appreciatively if the point man happened to be performing a song she liked.

  
Saito hadn’t returned to the warehouse, but Eames knew that he had a special chat with Yusuf about finding a cure for the point man.

  
But the job continued; as Eames perfected the forgery, Ariadne adjusted her models of the two levels they finally agreed would be needed to complete the heist, Yusuf put away the compound he had tested on Arthur and switched to his usual (non-spontaneous rapping inducing) Somnacin.

Arthur worked just as diligently, but produced reports that were peppered with little errors.

  
For example, one report read, “I have yet to find signs of militarization of the mark Spencer Oswald Spence (S.O.S). While there are no overt signs or evidence of previous involvement in dreamshare and no meetings with any extractor hired to train S.O.S’s mind, we should enter his mind with caution in case of – (and here Arthur had typed up some rhymes that concerned a possible sabotage) – surprises mid-dream.”

* * *

On the day of the extraction, Eames and Cobb had been the ones to collect Mr. Spence, corporate big-wig with a brain full of high-priced secrets! Arthur had rented a room in the hotel Spence was staying, trusting Cobb and Eames to follow Spence to the bar downstairs, spike his drink, and get him back up to the room while making it look like their new buddy was just drunk, not unconscious, and needed help climbing the stairs.

  
It went smoothly, even if Eames didn’t count how he thought of what Arthur might have unintentionally rapped if he watched Cobb drug Spence’s drink. Eames’s only job at that moment would be to smile and distract the young man so Cobb could do what was necessary. Either way, it didn’t stop him from thinking of the song “Brass Monkey” or what Arthur would sound like trying to quietly say the pertinent lyrics about drugging someone’s drink. Eames could imagine Arthur, rapping about it. Eames had heard that song before and couldn’t help it.

  
Eames blushed to himself, just a little. That was the reason why Arthur was waiting upstairs. Not because of the blushing, but the fact that even though it wasn’t happening as much, Arthur’s accidental rapping would draw way too much attention.

  
Let Spence believe that Eames’s slightly pink face was because of something he said; the other man was mollified because even if he didn’t identify as gay, having a man as handsome as Eames bothering to chat with him was a well needed ego boost. It gave Cobb the extra moment he needed. He passed Spence his drink and that was all she wrote.

* * *

“Why don’t you stay and keep watch over us?” Cobb said to Arthur, hooking Spence up to the PASIV.

  
“Why should I when I’m already set to dream up the second level?” Arthur asked, maybe taking more care with his words than usual. He had been trying very hard to avoid the bouts of rapping. He was getting better but it was a slow, slow process. And he wasn’t going to let it or Cobb stop him from doing his work!

  
There was an edge to Arthur’s voice that made Cobb flinch; as he had been pressing the needle into Spence’s arm, it also made Spence feebly twitch in his drugged up state. It had probably hurt just enough.

  
Cobb smoothly rose from his crouched position at Spence’s side.

  
“It’s just, I was thinking that maybe Ariadne could take the second level for us and you could stand sentinel. Maybe it would be better.”

  
Ariadne, who had been busy pretending she couldn’t hear the beginnings of a spectacular fight between the extractor and point man (but also secretly hoped that it would lead to a rap battle that she could record on her phone), looked up at the sound of her name.

  
“Yeah, sure,” she said.

  
Arthur shot her a glare but she raised her hands in surrender. “Or maybe not?”

  
“I’m fine, Cobb.” Arthur didn’t care that his next words were the lyrics to a song, he didn’t care that he was rapping them. It might not have been helping his case, but what the hell was he supposed to do?

  
His rapping most likely meant ‘Hey, my hotel-level will be fine. And even though I’m behaving oddly I can do my job!’

  
Then, Arthur moved to the spot he saved next to Eames, set up his line and drove the needle into his vein with a look of defiance on his face, as if he were daring Cobb to pull him off the team.

  
Cobb didn’t. He sighed and went to his spot next to Spence, pulled his own line out, inserted the needle and waited for Ariadne to come and press the button for them.

  
She didn’t say anything like ‘Sweet dreams’. She just smiled and said, “Don’t rip each other apart down there!”

* * *

Eames was on the first level, helping them lull Spence into the right frame of mind to divulge secrets. Though he would never admit this to anyone else, Spence was a very superstitious man. He collected good luck charms. He believed in UFO’s, elves or fairies, and ghosts. Spence also went to his psychic once a week, every week, to try and plumb the mysteries of his future.

  
It appeared that Spence had been having a run of bad luck- his wife had left him, his car had been impounded, and he was looking for something to blame it all on. After watching the man for a while, Eames had deduced that there were plenty of acceptable reasons for those things to occur. Spence was “working late” quite a lot recently (and by working late, Eames really meant slowly siphoning off his own companies biggest, most expensive secrets for his personal gain). This meant that his wife, who had also recently found evidence of Spence’s latest mistress, decided to leave him while there was still something left in their joint bank-account. Spence’s car had been impounded because of the hefty stack of unpaid parking tickets shoved in the glove compartment.

  
But Eames had chosen to pose as Spence’s psychic; an older woman, her darkly tanned face was like the skin of a withered apple, and her masses of white hair were held away from her face with colorful scarves. She wasn’t a Romani Gypsy woman but she liked the costume and the air of romanticism it gave her. The name that she gave her customers wasn’t on her birth certificate. It also wasn’t on the lease she signed to get the small shop she operated her psychic business from.

  
In fact, she liked to change her name every once and awhile, either to claim that she was currently acting as the vessel for one wandering spirit or another or honestly having forgotten which name she had used previously. The psychic had called herself Moonshadow the time that Eames had walked in for an appointment, examining the psychic while Ariadne sat by his side pretending to be his younger sister so she could examine the building and the room in detail.

  
The visit had been successful. Ariadne had recreated the little shop with its heavily draped windows, the scent of incense in the air, the lamps that offered only scattered sullen points of light.

  
Eames had just gotten settled in as the psychic when both Cobb and Arthur arrived inside the shop with Spence not too far behind. The man was nothing but bubbling excitement.

  
“She’s the best,” he was saying. “She can read palms, the cards, tea leaves- whatever you want!”

  
To get Spence in a more receptive mood, Arthur was pushed into a low stool at Eames’s table. Eames, wearing the shape of Spence’s most revered psychic, smiled at the point man.

  
Eames thought that he should introduce himself under a new name. He didn’t like the sound of Moonshadow. “I am Penrose,” he managed, speaking in the older woman’s wavering voice, but not missing Arthur’s small smile at the Escher reference. Spence made a note about the name change as well, leaning over Arthur’s shoulder and eyeing the psychic.

  
“Oh!” Spence finally said, looking at Arthur and then at Cobb, very excited. “This is wonderful! She must be serving as a vessel for a different spirit!”

  
Eames now Penrose, raised an eyebrow but nodded slowly, as if the spirit in control of the old woman’s body was having a hard time moving the arthritic body, the sore limbs.

  
“Indeed. But today I am here to decipher your problems, look through the haze of the future, and- and…” Eames made a show of rolling his eyes to the back of his head, showing only the whites. Thankfully Spence thought that this was natural.

  
“Penrose is taking her deeper so she may perform your reading!” He sounded a little jealous. “You should be honored.”

  
Eames made a show of slowly blinking his eyes, counting silently to himself before returning his eyes to normal. He had a stack of cards waiting on the table. He drew them close and noticed they were Tarot cards. He was familiar with these, not like a true Tarot reader, but like someone who could con their way through a reading to earn money.

  
He asked that Arthur shuffle and cut the deck while thinking of a question. Arthur did so, and passed them back. Eames began by laying three cards face down on the table, not choosing to use the Celtic Cross because it had been forever since he had last done it. Then, one by one he flipped them over and tried to see what story they could tell.

Whatever question Arthur had asked, whatever question he had intended to ask, had ended up referring to his greatest problem at the present.  
The Tarot cards iconic pictures had been removed. Instead of images there were words.

  
The three cards, read together from the left to the right, were lyrics from “Sure Shot.”

  
And that was when Eames realized that Arthur’s rapping was appearing in a different form within the dream. He shared a look with Arthur, who was just a little disturbed by this. Eames also looked at Cobb who had been expecting something like this to happen.

Thankfully, Spence thought that it was mysterious and cool.

  
“Wow,” the mark said, “What could it mean, Penrose?”

  
Eames knew what to say.

  
“The cards…” he pressed his fingers to his temples and looked down and the cards in amazement. “This is impossible, but Mr. Spence, the cards are only behaving in his manner because of something to do with you!”

  
Maybe Spence just wanted to feel special. Maybe Spence was stupid.

  
“What- you mean, this is happening because of me?” Spence was buying it!

  
Eames leaned over the table and made a motion, waving Arthur to the side to allow Spence to take his seat. Arthur looked grateful for that, but traded a dark look with Cobb who would have liked to start an argument in the background as Eames worked.

  
Spence grabbed for Eames’s thin and withered hand, as if he regularly held hands with his old female psychic.

  
“Mr. Spence…Spencer,” Eames said in the psychic’s quavering voice, using the man’s first name wondering for the hundredth time why his parents had given him a first name so similar to his last name. “I know that you have secrets. Things buried deep within your psyche that will poison you, that will ruin your life.”

  
“My bad luck…” Spence had come to the conclusion they wanted. “These- these secrets of mine are causing my bad luck!” He tightened his hold on his psychic’s hand as if she were his only lifeline. “Tell me, Penrose! How can I fix this?”

  
Eames waved his free hand to a back room that had been covered with a curtain of beads, a place that he was already certain that customers didn’t usually get to see; when he slipped inside the small back room during his last visit, doing so carefully to avoid the clattering of beads and risk alerting the psychic as she gave advice to Ariadne (it included such gems as describing what Ariadne’s future husband will look like and the number of children Ariadne would have according to what she had read in the young architect’s palm). It had been a long enough conversation that Eames had been able to see that the backroom held small bed, an old television set, and a hot-plate. The backroom must have been the psychic’s living space.

  
“Enter the room and you will find the means to rid yourself of these secrets.”

  
Spence hesitated briefly, looking at the doorway with its curtain of beads. He was no doubt reflecting on the secrets he kept close, the secrets that benefited him. But Eames smiled at him, wearing the shape of his familiar and reassuring psychic.

  
“All will be well,” Eames said, making a show of standing slowly and carefully as a woman his age would, as he had noted when he watched the psychic on his visit.

  
Spence rushed to her side to help.

  
They entered the backroom together with Cobb and Arthur at their heels.

* * *

“Just close your eyes, Mr. Spence,” Eames said as he stooped over the young man in the bed. “You must relax. You will find the answer to your problems once you rid yourself of the secrets, but first you must be in the proper state of mind. I have led you through similar exercises before.”

  
That much was true- but Eames was certain that none of the meditation he had found references to involved the use of a PASIV device.

  
But the mark was doing just as he was asked. He was taking deep breaths, relaxing, and waiting for the next command.

  
Arthur and Cobb had already gotten the PASIV out and set it up on a nearby table. They were attached with lines in place and Cobb was giving Eames a length of the unspooled line meant for Mr. Spencer Oswald Spence.

  
Eames counted himself lucky that Spence was wearing short sleeves. This would be more difficult if he had to roll up the man’s sleeve to get at him with the needle.

  
“What’s that?” Spence said, his voice hushed and soft. Almost like laying prone was making him a little sleepy. Eames had found the vein and was gently pressing the needle in- the young man would barely feel the pinch as long as he stayed so still.

  
And he did.

  
“Nothing to worry about,” Eames said putting his hand against the button of the PASIV, “Just prepare for your journey.”

  
He pressed the button and sent his mark and his teammates down into the second level.

* * *

“For a meditation about unearthing my secrets and getting rid of my bad luck,” the mark said, looking around the crowded hotel lobby, “This seems to be normal.”

  
Cobb raised an eyebrow at Arthur who shrugged.

  
“What do you normally see when you meditate?”

  
Spence looked at a woman as she was passing by. “Peaceful things.”

  
He seemed to think that the view of her from behind was particularly peaceful because he had yet to complain.

  
“Perhaps we should get back on track,” Cobb said, taking lead as the extractor. “Penrose said that it was your secrets that were harming you and giving you all of that bad luck. Though this setting isn’t what you expected it to be, it is still possible to find where your secrets could be hiding. Just show us the way.”

  
So far, the projections that populated this level hadn’t been acting as if there was a problem. Spence’s mind was actually relaxed and the level of activity was something normal for a hotel of this size and quality.

  
Cobb and Arthur followed Spence like ducklings as he went to the front desk and asked about his room. He actually turned around to face Cobb and Arthur so he could share a conspiratorial wink. Then he turned back to the neatly dressed concierge who awaited his request.

  
“I would like to find my room. You know,” Spence said lightly. “The one with all of my secrets, so there’s a big tip ready for you to keep it all hush-hush!”

  
The concierge spared an inquisitive glance at Cobb and Arthur. Both dream workers grew very quiet and waited for the worst- the worst at this point could involve anything from the concierge throwing the stapler near his left hand to using the phone to call security on them. They didn’t need to be thrown out of the hotel by security when they hadn’t even had a chance to look at the information they had been hired to find.

  
But all was well. The concierge gave them a key and politely waved away the money Spence pulled out of his pocket for the tip. With that done, Spence proudly led the way to Room 411. And because Spence thought that taking the elevator would make his journey less profound, he demanded that they take the stairs.

  
Spence raced ahead of them, treating this experience as a game or a race that he would have to win! “Last one to the room buys everyone else a drink!”

  
Arthur glanced at Cobb before sighing to himself and running up the stairs.

  
“What are you doing, Arthur?” Cobb said, huffing and puffing as he struggled to catch up with his point man.

  
“I’m not buying the drinks.”

  
Cobb was too out of breath to answer. Thankfully it was only four flights of stairs and Spence had thought to wait for them at the door marked 411. It was enough to make Arthur roll his eyes, that Spence would label his hotel room of secrets with the number associated with information was a little too on the nose. It was better than having a big question mark or marking the door with an “x” that corresponded to a map that marked the spot.

  
When Spence noticed that they had arrived he pointed triumphantly at Cobb and told him that he would be buying! Then, the mark opened the door and revealed that the room, from floor to ceiling, was filled with paper.

  
Cobb’s jaw dropped. He had been expecting a safe maybe. Not a forest of paper. He had been asked to find the information that pertained to the company, but this- this seemed to be too much!

  
“Spence,” Arthur began, looking at the stacks of paper without flinching. “The best strategy would be to organize them by category- that way we won’t have to spend hours sifting through the stacks.”

  
Spence was nodding in agreement. “Good idea.”

  
After he said those words his mountains of paper arranged themselves into many separate smaller stacks. Over each stack hovered a glowing sign to identify it. Cobb immediately went to the much smaller stack that was marked Work. Spence began to sift through a different stack labeled Relationships.

  
The corporate executive coughed and looked at the most recent page. He blushed to himself. “Wow, it’s kind of strange to see it all on paper.” He waved the paper at Arthur, like it was evidence. Because it was.

  
“I deserved it when my wife left me…”

  
“Then don’t cheat on her,” Arthur said, noting out the corner of his eye that Cobb had made a lot of progress in a short amount of time. He was taking certain sheets of paper and throwing others away, looking for exact secrets or particular tidbits.

  
Spence was busy looking through another stack that was labeled Childhood. Surely there wasn’t anything too horrible there? Even as a kid, Spence couldn’t have done anything so bad that he would have kept it as a secret in Room 411?

  
“Oh!” Spence said, looking at one piece of paper from that pile. “I- I had forgotten, but when I was a little boy I had accidentally killed my pet gerbil! I lied and told my mother that my sister had left the cage unlatched and that Morgan,” Spence looked over at Arthur briefly, adding, “He was our cat. I said that Morgan probably ate my gerbil!”

  
Arthur forced himself to keep his expression nice and calm. That had to be a small secret- he was just a kid and kids do stupid, hurtful things all the time. Arthur would have said something kind if Spence hadn’t opened his mouth again. He was still looking at that paper.

  
“But I hated Morgan. He hated me, too. So one day I took him to the animal shelter without telling my parents. I just said that he ran away…”

  
Arthur wasn’t a cat person, but he still hated hearing about animals being neglected. Cobb was waving at Arthur.

  
“Got it,” the extractor said in an undertone. “Let’s get going before we hear anything else about Spence.”

  
“Good,” Arthur said, turning to their mark as he looked through another stack of papers, looking sadder and sadder.

  
“No wonder my luck is so bad! I need to fix this…I need to fix this!”

  
Cobb said, “You can’t change the past, Mr. Spence.”

  
And then music began to play. Cobb recognized it and turned to Arthur for an explanation. He didn’t get one because Arthur was equally confused by this choice. Arthur would have killed for some Edith Piaf but he was getting the Beastie Boys instead.

  
Their mark seemed to recognize it as well. “Is that “Fight For Your Right” playing?”

  
And Arthur couldn’t hold back anymore- before he could rap again, he pulled his gun, pointed it at his own head, and fired.

* * *

They woke up on the first level and Eames had dropped the forgery of the psychic. He moved to Arthur’s side immediately. Like usual, Arthur was awake, focused, and on his feet. But as he removed his line he was rapping to himself. Eames ignored Arthur’s rebellious comments about parents, school, and partying.

  
“Did you guys get it all?”

  
Arthur nodded.

  
Cobb had woken up at about the same time and was giving Arthur an exasperated look. “You just had to bring the Beastie Boys in on this again.”

  
“I-,” Arthur bit down on his tongue to prevent himself from rapping the next words, “- didn’t choose the music for the kick. Ask Ariadne.”

  
Arthur winced and bit the inside of his cheek to stop himself from spitting a rhyme.

  
“I get it!” Cobb said, rubbing his hands down his face and shaking this off as best he could. “You are going to say something about fighting for your right to party. Now let’s get out of here!”

  
They didn’t wait for the musical cue and just gave themselves the kick, making sure to flip Spence’s rickety bed, forcing him to fall to the ground and experience the kick in a less violent way.

* * *

For all the little slips during the job, it was finished very neatly. Quietly, even. Spence Oswald Spencer, cheater and negligent childhood owner of animals, was left to sleep on the bed in the hotel they had rented, the previous sedation making it so.

  
Hopefully he would have turned over a new leaf and became a better person for it. Maybe he wouldn’t. But their involvement with the mark was over.

  
They left the scene of the extraction and separated, deciding to meet at their warehouse within the hour. Cobb and Ariadne went one way and Arthur and Eames went another. The former took a car and the latter hailed a cab.

  
“So, I’m glad that’s over,” Eames said, leaning heavily against Arthur’s shoulder as they sat in the backseat.

  
Arthur nodded heavily but refused to say anything.

  
“I really don’t mind the rapping,” Eames said, aware that his choice of words had caught their cabbie’s attention. Eames kicked the back of the seat and cleared his throat, causing the cabbie to get his attention back on the road.

  
“I don’t,” Eames reiterated. “I’m curious about why you focused on the Beastie Boys, though. Something had to have happened during the dry run. Why won’t you tell me?”

  
The point man sighed to himself before saying something very softly. Eames almost couldn’t hear it over the sound of traffic.

  
Almost.

  
“The day of Yusuf’s test…it was May 4th and I can’t help but listen to the Beastie Boys to remember Adam “MCA” Yauch. He died on that day in 2012.”

  
“I’m sorry, darling.”

  
Arthur waved one hand. “It wasn’t like I was the biggest Beastie Boy fan. I just grew up with the music and felt sad when I remembered the date.”

  
This, Eames thought, made sense. Arthur already had the Beastie Boys on his mind when he went under. Maybe the new Somnacin just brought it up to the surface and forced Arthur to offer a theme to the information he would give. He would finish a sentence or answer a question as long as the Beastie Boys had the lyrics to manage it.

  
And he was getting better! There was less rapping today than any other day- there very well may be even less tomorrow! It was just a slow process.

  
“It could have been worse,” Arthur said, stealthily reaching for Eames hand. “You’ve been very good about this; putting up with me, being so nice to me…”

  
Eames smiled and pressed a kiss against the point man’s cheek. “Like I’d let you deal with this by yourself? What kind of a bastard do you think I am?”

  
Arthur could have said many things, but ended up offering another Beastie Boys lyric, this time from “Paul Revere”.

  
Eames shook his head. Arthur was right. Their story wasn’t over- it was just beginning.

 

 

 


End file.
